Take Action
Help Friends of Blackwater protect precious and endangered land by taking the actions below!
Help Protect the Monarch Butterfly!
Monarch butterfly populations are plummeting. In just one year, their overwintering habitat shrank by 59%, now covering only 2.2 acres in Mexico. Habitat loss, pesticides, climate change, and other threats are pushing these iconic pollinators toward extinction.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has proposed listing Monarchs as threatened and designating 4,395 acres of critical habitat in California—a crucial step for their survival. Friends of Blackwater urges supporters to submit a comment before March 12, 2025.
Key points for your comment:
Support the threatened listing and advocate for expanding critical habitat.
Call for stronger pesticide regulations to protect milkweed, Monarchs’ key food source.
Demand better protections for overwintering sites in Mexico and California.
Highlight the urgent need to address climate change, which disrupts migration.
You can also help by planting native milkweed and avoiding pesticides. Submit your comment today!
Photo By/Credit
Brett Billings/USFWS
Old-Growth Amendment
On Earth Day 2022, President Biden made a groundbreaking commitment to forest conservation by signing an Executive Order to protect the nation’s mature and old-growth trees on federal lands — the boldest action of its kind in over 20 years.
Now, we have the opportunity to ensure this promise is fulfilled. The U.S. Forest Service must adopt strong, decisive measures to safeguard these irreplaceable natural treasures.
By supporting this crucial amendment, you can make a real difference.
Join us now to speak up and help save our majestic, old-growth forests!
Tell the WVDOH to Go North for Corridor H!
Sign Our Petition to tell the WVDOH to use the Northern Route for the Parsons to Davis section
Target: West Virginia Department of Highways
The WVDOH’s Canyon Route will obstruct scenic views of the Blackwater Canyon, destroy endangered species habitat, illegally disrupt the Blackwater Historic District, and divide the sister towns of Thomas & Davis.
Campaign for an Environmental Assessment for Core Drilling on the Monongahela National Forest
Send comments to the Monongahela National Forest calling for a full Environmental Review for core-drilling on the Monongahela National Forest for Corridor H Parsons to Davis
Target: Monongahela National Forest Service
Upper Cheat River Project Save the Trout and Bats! Stop the flooding!
Friends of Blackwater is very concerned about the Upper Cheat River Logging project. This poorly-planned project proposes to timber large sections of the Monongahela National Forest in the Upper Cheat River watershed (an area already being privately timbered). This project will cut trees on very steep slopes that will increase flooding and sediment deposition in the rivers and streams. In addition, opening the canopy will increase temperatures in cold-water streams that native brook trout require for their survival (see map). This project will also cut in Northern long-eared bat habitat, an endangered species currently in decline due to the human-spread white-nose syndrome. Cutting of large, older-growth trees, as outlined in this project, will have negative consequences for climate change as they store a much higher amount of carbon than small trees.
